THE MICROBIOME SUMMIT : The Paradigm Shift
The Beginner’s Guide to the Microbiome
Dr. Talia Zenlea, MD
Wondering what the microbiome is all about? Dr. Talia Zenlea is a gastroenterologist working out of Women’s College Hospital in Toronto. Dr. Zenlea is an active teacher interested in developing better communication for patients. In this interview, Dr. Zenlea will lead us through the microbiome 101, foundational knowledge for the rest of the Town Hall Medicine Summit.
- Tracey:
- We’re here at the University of Toronto with Doctor Talia Zenlea, a gastroenterologist. Welcome.
- Talia:
- Thank you, thanks for having me.
- Tracey:
- A lot of new information about the gastrointestinal tract has come to light within the past decade, specifically the microbiome. Would you mind giving us a lesson on the microbiome?
- Talia:
- Sure, I’d love to. The microbiome is fascinating, and I’m no expert, but I’ll share with you what I understand of it, because I think it’s really important, and particularly, a really important part of what I do, and how I manage some of the illnesses that I treat. The microbiome refers to the genetic make-up of the bacteria that live in our body.
I’m going to stop right there, because a lot of people think, “Bacteria living in our body? That doesn’t make sense.” But we actually do. We cohabitate with a bunch of good bacteria that don’t—we often think of bacteria as things that go on to form infections, and I actually should correct that. It’s not bacteria, it’s microbiota. So this can be viruses, funguses, all sorts of different things. But these bugs live in our body in various different places. So, they can live in our skin, they can live in our mouths, the vagina, the lung, and the gut. The reason why the gut microbiome is so interesting to most people is because that’s where we see the most diverse and broad population of organisms, and we think that the role of the gut microbiome can, clinically, be more meaningful than the microbiome in other places, probably because of how diverse it is.
So, what does that mean? As I said, there’s this community of organisms that live inside of us, and as we’ve begun to understand that they’re there, we’ve also questioned: what do they do, and what are they for? And in order to better understand that, we sequenced the genes of some of those bugs, and we tried to characterize: what bugs are they, at all? So we’ve come up with this bank that’s similar to the human genome, but it’s the human microbiome’s, meaning it’s a genetic understanding of the typical organisms that colonize the normal GI tract. - Tracey:
- So you can’t see them when you send your scope down there?
- Talia:
- Mm-mm, this is not something I see at all. These are bugs that, just like on your skin, you can’t see them. These are bugs that are living within us, using us for food, and often, in return, they impart some advantages to us. And that’s what we’re beginning to understand, which is really fascinating.
- Tracey:
- Can you go through what you know, so far, about where do they live in the gastrointestinal tract? Are they in the stomach, or the esophagus, or the mouth, or the small intestine?
- Talia:
- The GI tract spans from mouth to anus, and there are bugs lining that entire tract. Basically, our entire GI tract is full of organisms, as is the other organs that have microbiota living on them. So our entire skin is covered with these organisms, our lungs are full of them, and mostly because those are the parts of our body that communicate with the outside world. There are sterile parts of our body, like the kidneys, for example, that don’t communicate with the outside world. And then there’s our skin, our lungs, every time we breathe we’re taking in air that’s not sterile from the outside world. Every time we put something in our mouths it connects to the rest of the GI tract, and that’s also full of stuff that’s not sterile. So these are all things that have been colonized within us from our environment, living within us.
- Tracey:
- Right. Thank you.
- Talia:
- Thank you, thanks for having me.
